The Roman Arena ..... on the wireless today

This is another bit of history I enjoyed today.

It comes from that excellent series In Our Time and is free to listen to long after the first broadcast. 

"Misha Glenny and guests discuss the countless venues across the Roman Empire which for over five hundred years drew the biggest crowds both in the Republic and under the Emperors. 

The shows there delighted the masses who knew, no matter how low their place in society, they were much better off than the gladiators about to fight or the beasts to be slaughtered. 

Some of the Roman elites were disgusted, seeing this popular entertainment as morally corrupting and un-Roman. Moral degradation was a less immediate concern though than the overspill of violence. 

There was a constant threat of gladiators being used as a private army and while those of the elite wealthy enough to stage the shows hoped to win great prestige, they risked disappointing a crowd which could quickly become a mob and turn on them.

With Kathleen Coleman, James Loeb Professor of the Classics at Harvard University, John Pearce, Reader in Archaeology at King’s College London and, Matthew Nicholls, Fellow and Senior Tutor at St John’s College, Oxford

Producer: Simon Tillotson"*

Picture; mosaic depicting a gladiatorial fight  from the villa Nennig,** dating from the first century AD, 2021, https://www.flickr.com/photos/168399512@N02/51134391753/ Author TimeTravelRome, Licensing w:en:Creative Commons attribution This file is licensed under the Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license.***

*The Roman Arena BBC Radio 4, In Our Time, https://www.bbc.co.uk/programmes/m002qj85

**Nennig is a village in the Saarland, Germany, part of the municipality of Perl. It is situated on the river Moselle, opposite Remich, Luxembourg.

***Roman Villa Nennig, https://www.visitsaarland.co.uk/poi/detail/roman-villa-nennig-c859e1607c

Shops I have known

I can’t even remember when I took this photograph but it wasn’t that long ago.

Like all these types of shops there was a wonderful collection of anything and everything ranging from under a £ to a tenner.

In the pursuit of a washing line I came across a pink plastic embossed flower vase, mounds of household goods and of course that picture of New York Bridge in the early morning.

It provided cheaper versions of things and more often and not things which were unavailable in the supermarkets.  Its passing was quickly filled by other such shops and now in the last month a new You and Me has opened up beside the bus station.

Not that it has always been a shop.  Back at the beginning of the 20th century it was the home of Mrs Margaret Barber and her six children.  In those days it was a fine 11 roomed house facing out on to Maple Avenue.

But some time during the mid century the extension was added and it became a shop.

Now I will set myself the job of digging out just what Harvey’s were selling in the May of 1959 when A.H.Downes took his photograph and I guess it continued for sometime before becoming You and Me.

And for those who regularly pass the spot they too will have seen it transform into different furniture shops.

Pictures; from the collection of Andrew Simpson, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, and from a series taken by A.H. Downes in May 1959,  m17594, Courtesy of Manchester , Information and Archives, Manchester City Council 

Adventures in Middle England ……… from Leicestershire into the Cotswolds …no. 3 …. starting out

All adventures start somewhere and ours started in Market Harborough which my Wikipedia tells me is “a market town in the Harborough district of Leicestershire [with a] population of 24,779 in 2021”and was settled by the Saxons*

From the Grammar School, 2024

Just when that was is unclear, but like many such places it come into history after the Normans arrived, gaining a market in 1204 an extension to its church a century later and a grammar school in the early 17th century which stands on wooden posts which allowed the space below to be used as a market.

In the same century it was chosen as the headquarters by the Royalist army during the Civil War as the base for which to confront the Parliamentarian forces camped nearby at Naseby.  This turned out to be not so good, as during the Battle of Naseby the Royalists were defeated and the chapel in the town was used to house Royalist prisoners.

People watching in the square, 2024

None of which I knew as we sat in the town square, part of which was given over to a Turkish restaurant.

The sun shone, we ate under a leafy tree and I people watched.

The memorial, 2024

I now know heaps more about its history including the war memorial, and that “in 1950 the canal basin was the venue for a week-long National Festival of Boats, the first such festival organised by the Inland Waterways Association and marking the beginning of the revival of the canal network for leisure use”.*

There is plenty more, but I leave that to you to discover.

Location; Market Harborough

Pictures; Market Harborough, 2024, from the collection of Andrew Simpson

*Market Harborough,  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Market_Harborough

Another side to the remarkable Mr Banks, celebrated photographer and now artist

Trade card, 1885

Now somewhere I know I will find at least one of the three “life size busts , painted in oil on canvas, from photographs” of “Messrs, John Slagg, Jacob Bright and Robert Leake.”*

And in the fullness of time I will also unearth a picture of Cheetham Reform Club which was on the corner of Bignor Street and Heywood Street.

It was opened in 1882, and I suppose it was fitting that these three paintings should have been commissioned by the Club because back in 1880  John Slagg and Jacob Bright had laid the foundation stone for the building and with their fellow MP Robert Leake had spoken of the importance of the new club to Cheetham.

Along with a large local crowd there was a "special party" who had made their way from that other Reform Club in the centre of Manchester and had arrived in a hired coach.

Looking at maps of the period it was an impressive pile with a large bowling green set in open spaces on the edge of some densely packed housing.

From the Manchester Guardian, 1882

But the Reform Club was not what drew me into the story that was our old friend the photographer Robert Banks, who rose from fairly humble beginnings to be a well known Manchester photographer.

Many of his public photographs of the city and including lots of public events are still available as are the personal photographic images of people who attended his studios, but until now I had no idea that he also painted.

Selling Valentin Cards 1872

I suppose I shouldn’t have been too surprised given that he was at one time employed by the Oldham Chronicle as an “illustrated artist” and later when he opened his own studio at Uppermill in 1867 he advertised Valentine Cards.

But there is the first reference to something as grand as full scale paintings.

A royal event, 1911

All of which points up that simple observation that there is always more to find out about things and as I finish writing this I have in front of me a photograph by Mr Banks which I haven’t seen before.

It is of the visit of Edward VII and Alexandra for the official opening of the new Manchester Royal Infirmary on Oxford Road in 1909.

Now this is quite surprising given that he was very effective at publishing his own work much of which appeared in souvenir collections soon after the great event had occurred.

And in this I have been lucky in that my friend Sally came across one of these books, “much knocked about, missing its cover and spine but full of wonderful images of Manchester.”

So there you have it, another story on Mr Banks with a side of the man I knew nothing of and the hope that his paintings will emerge from the shadows.

Pictures; trade card advertising Robert Bank’s studios circa 1885 and advert from the Oldham Chroncile, 1872, courtesy of Saddleworth Museum, http://www.saddleworthmuseum.co.uk/, newspaper report from the Manchester Guardian and  the Royal visit, 1909, Robert Banks, m72040, courtesy of Manchester Libraries, Information and Archives, Manchester City Council, http://images.manchester.gov.uk/index.php?session=pass

*Cheetham Reform Club, Manchester Guardian, September 20 1882

When the Woolwich Ferry saved me from a telling off .......... 132 years of crossing the River

You can never have enough pictures of the Woolwich Ferry, and so it proved again yesterday when I posted a picture of one of the old ferries.

1905

Now I say the old ferries, but the James Newman, John Burns and Ernest Bevan were the newcomers, going into service in 1963.

Before them there was the The Squire which started ferrying passengers and things in 1923, followed by the Will Crooks, and The John Benn seven years later.  

They replaced the Gordan, the Duncan and the Hutton, the first of which began chugging across the river in 1889.

And before that, the Royal Arsenal operated their own ferry service in 1810, followed by various commercial venture.

Nor I suspect was the Royal Arsenal the first, because given the need, there must have been  plenty of enterprising people who saw a potential money making enterprise.

2012

So with all those in mind, and in honour of the Ben Woollacot and the Dame Vera Lynn which are the two new ferries which entered service in 2019, here  is another ferry story which features some of those ferries dating back to 1905.

Anyone who was born or grew up in Eltham, will have used them at sometime, and for me crossing the river by the free ferry has always been magic.

It might not take long but in the short time while on board the trip offers up spectacular views, and of course that distinctive smell that you only get from big powerful rivers.

I have never lost my love of the Woolwich Ferry, so much, that a few years ago on missing the M25 on our way north from Kent, I seized the opportunity to make the river crossing at Woolwich.

2021

Now I could have owned up straight away and blamed my map reading, but instead as you do I turned it into an adventure, confident that Tina would also fall for the magic of  the ferry.

The journey from Well Hall up to Shooters Hill was pleasant, the fall down into Woolwich quite spectacular and the river crossing something else.

Of course those of us who have used it all our lives can be a tad dismissive of the journey.

You often have to wait a long time to get on, the trip across is short and often accompanied by gust of cold river wind, but it can still be pretty good.

On the day we made thee crossing, the sun was hot, the water almost blue, and we were set up for the long drive north.

2021

But then even for that short journey the Thames didn't disappoint us.

I do miss the cranes and barges, and the busy doings of a working river.

And before I slip into romantic tosh about a bustling living water way it is as well to remember it was dirty, noisy and for those who made a livelihood beside the river it was hard dangerous work and the rewards were not always that good.

2012

But it was my river.

Location; Woolwich, London

Picture;  the Woolwich Ferry, 1905 courtesy of TuckDB, http://tuckdb.org/postcards, the ferry in 2012, from the collection of Andrew Simpson and Dame Vera Lynn courtesy of Gary Luttman and Paula Nottle

Learning to drive a corporation tram and other stories ….. Sidney Kirven

Sidney Kirven worked for Manchester City Council from 1925 till he retired forty-one years later.

Starting out, 1925

In that time, he saw the last days of the old corporation trams, the transition to a fully motorised fleet of buses and just missed the end of the city’s transport department.

Free from Accidents, 1962

Three years after his retirement Manchester’s fleet of buses joined those of the other ten municipalities in Greater Manchester to become a single transport authority, covering southeast Lancashire and northeast Cheshire going under the title of SELNEC.

For a while the various bus fleets retained their original colours of the old eleven municipalities but slowly were repainted in the new corporate orange and white livery of SELNEC.

I don’t know what Mr. Kirven thought of the change, and even if I did that would be a different story because today I want to focus and box full of items from his career with Manchester Corporation Tramways and its successor, Manchester City Council Transport Department.

The documents were passed over to me by a family member and include his training record card while learning to drive a tram, several trade union cards, along with a copy of the 1931 Highway Code, a number of his driving licences, a Safety Award and a letter commemorating his retirement in December 1966.

Uniform Clothing Coupons, 1941-1944

To those historians dealing with the great sweep of history they may appear small fry, but for me they are a wonderful insight into how we lived.

For me the training record card is fascinating giving as it does the route of the of the old trams across the city, while the two receipts for uniform clothing coupons is a reminder that during the war rationing extended to the uniforms of bus and transport drivers.

Of course, a lot more research needs to be done to transform these bits of memorabilia into a detailed story of Mr. Kirven and how they fit into the history of Manchester’s public transport.  Otherwise, they will just have a novelty value.

But today I am just pleased to be able to share them.

Location; Manchester

Pictures; from the collection of Rob and Doreen Lizar

The remarkable Mr Banks from factory worker to photographer by Royal Appointment

Oldham Street looking towards New Cross

There is something magic about this picture of Oldham Street which dates from around 1900.

And I am not alone in thinking this.  My friend Sally commented that “the image draws you in” and certainly you feel right at the heart of the city on a busy working day.

We are actually just past Hilton Street looking up towards Great Ancoats Street and New Cross.

Off to our right at numbers 56-58 was Abel Heywood & Sons, the booksellers who had in their time published some of the most important books on Manchester.

Beside them at number 60 was Marks and Spencer Ltd and beyond were the businesses of White the manufacturing jewellers whose sign dominated the skyline and the equally impressive sign of Crosby Walker Ltd whose draper’s shop stretched across numbers 82-86 Oldham Street.

In between were a branch of Maypoles’ the grocery chain, a Yates’ Wine lodge, and assorted photographer’s tailors, coffee merchants and confectioners.

My own favourite, at number 62, is the premise of Miss Isabella, servants registry office which is a reminder that this is still the age when even relatively humble homes aspired to at least one servant.

What is all the more  remarkable is the number of photographers who were offering their services in this small stretch running from Hilton Street up to Warwick Street but then photography had come of age and one of its best exponent was none other than Robert Banks who took this picture.

He had been commissioned by the Corporation as early as 1878 to photograph a series of pictures of the newly opened Town Hall and went on to compile sets of albums including the opening of the Ship Canal, the unveiling of Queen Victoria’s statue, and King Edward’s visit in 1909.

Many of these appear in an old and battered book which Sally picked up recently.

The cover and binding had long ago been lost but the pictures were intact and they are a wonderful record of our city just a century and a bit ago.

Here are celebrated some of the great achievements of the Victorian period, from the towering textile warehouses, to the impressive public buildings and in between street scenes of everyday life.

But few now know much about Mr Banks.  Back in 2011 a collection of his images was published by the History Press along with a short biography but the book sadly is now out of print.*

All of which is a shame because his was an interesting life and reflects that classic view of the self made Victorian.

He was born in 1847, his father was a journeyman carpenter, and at fifteen he was employed as a woollen piercer in Upper Mill.  At the age of twenty he was an illustrated artist working for the Oldham Chronicle and in 1867 had set up as a photographer in the High Street at Uppermill.

Reception Room, Town Hall

Now that move of course glosses over a lot because the step from illustrator to photographic studio I doubt could have been easy but at present I have no idea at the capital needed to begin such a venture or how he might have financed it.

Suffice to say that by 1873 he had moved to Manchester, set up home at 73 Alexandra Road in Moss Side and was renting a studio at 73 Market Street.

Over the next thirty years the business moved from Market Street to New Cross, and on to Franklin Street and Victoria Street and in 1903 was at 126 Market Street.

Likewise the family home was variously on Alexandra Street, and later Mytton Street, but the buildings have long since been cleared.

That said it may be possible to locale the studio in Uppermill and there remains the census records from 1861 onwards and the Rate Books along with possible references in the Manchester Guardian.

I rather think I will also contact his biographer just because Mr Banks is an interesting chap who began in a factory and  along the way was given  the title By Royal Appointment.

Pictures; courtesy of Sally Dervan

Contributory research from James Stanhope-Brown

*Manchester From the Robert Banks Collection, James Stanhope-Brown, 2011, the History Press